The Cry of the Dove: A Novel (4 page)

What would Shahla have done in this dwelling? Would she have dinner with David and allow him to `ride her until her brass hand and ankle bracelets get jumbled up'? Would she stretch her arm to a total stranger and ride away with him in the dark? Would faith outweigh doubt? And what about the past, that dark shadow stalking you?

Holding my shopping bags firmly, I headed towards the main door. He followed me and said, `Will you have dinner with me?'

`Thank you so much, but I don't think so,' I said.

`Why not?'

`I am busy. I must go, Dave.'

I lowered my head and walked through the shop under the dry palm trees. Among the Indian peacocks, Buddhas, Mexican parrots and quilts and Chinese tables a new sound was being formed inside my head: `No', which my immigrant A-Z had always warned me against. A brass unicorn leaping into the air trying to reach the sky caught my eye.

I said to David quickly, `No. I am sorry.' And before he could answer I rushed out through the African door to the cold street sniffing the air for the aroma of home. The smell summoned me and I obliged as if in a trance. The smell of rich food being fried was mine.

I sniffed the smell of familiarity, freedom and home and listened.

`Balak: is that girl MI5?' the old man said.

`What's wrong with you? Agents don't go around dressed like Arab tramps. They wear big hats like Philsy, innit? White, blond, with a cigar in their mouth,' said the young man.

`You mean Philby, you idiot. And these days agents look like anything, look like Jesus Christ himself. How do I know?' said the old man in a North African accent.

`You are paranoid and all. At night when the leaves sway you think an American satellite is taking shots of you,' said the young man.

`Whoever she is I am not pleased about her hanging about like that,' the old man said and threw some new falafel rissoles in the bubbling frying oil. The cold air carried the aroma of rich fried food all the way to my heart. The sizzling sound of frying, the ladle fishing out, falafel being crushed in warm pitta bread and the pungent and oiled legs and realized that I was free at last. Gone were the days when I used to chase the hens around in wide pantaloons and loose flowery dresses in the bright colours of my village: red to be noticed, black for anger, green for spring and bright orange for the hot sun. If this small glass bottle were full of snake venom I would drink it in one go. I dabbed some perfume behind my ears and on my wrists, took a deep breath, tossed my no longer braided and veiled hair on my shoulders, pulled my tummy in, straightened my posture and walked out of Swan Cottage, which was the name Liz had chosen for her semi-detached house. I filled my chest with the clean morning air, inflating my ribs until my back muscles were taut and raw. I could see shreds of blue sky between the luminous white clouds that stretched out in different shapes: the mane of a horse, a small foot, a tiny, wrinkled hand like a tender vine leaf that has just burst open.

The cathedral in the distance looked dark and small. The feeble English sun was trying hard to melt away the clouds. I walked past the student residences, past the large white houses with neat gardens and barking dogs, past HM Prison. I looked at the high walls, the coiled barbed wire, the small barred windows, and realized that this time I was on the wrong side of the black iron gate despite my dark deeds and my shameful past. I was free, walking on the pavement like an innocent person. My face was black as if covered with soot, my hands were black and I had smeared the foreheads of my family with tar. A thick, dark, sticky liquid dripped from the iron railing I was holding all the way to the walkway. I shook my head trying to chase away the foul smell and looked towards the Exe.

I wished I could kiss the green protruding veins on the back of his ageing flaky hand, his forehead and his prickly grey beard, but I got up instead and rolled away through the mist of the evening until I disappeared, a rootless wind-blown desert weed.

IN DARKNESS OR AT DAWN KEEP YOUR PETALS TIGHT SHUT and legs closed! But like a reckless flower opening up to the sun I received Hamdan. `Salma, you're a woman now ... you are mine, my slave girl.'

`Yes, yes, yes," I used to say. There were no tissues, rubber or spermicide, just the fertile smell of freshly ploughed land. I washed my pantaloons in the stream and walked back home dazed. From then on I lay under the fig tree waiting for him most nights.

`My whore is still here!' he would say and take me quickly.

`More," I would whisper.

When Hamdan stopped revolving in orbits and I stopped kissing the horse, the goats and the trees, my mother and his mother grew suspicious. `You little slut, what have you done?' My mother yanked my hair.

`Mother, please.'

`You smeared our name with tar. Your brother will shoot you between the eyes.'

`Mother!'

My petals were plucked out one by one. She yanked, bit, belted until I turned black and blue and sank blissfully into darkness.

Walking alone under electric poles, whose shadows were getting longer and longer, I hugged my shopping bag. No, it was not easy living here in England as an `alien', which was how the immigration officer had described me. I once wrote on the walls of a public toilet: `A dark alien has passed through the skies of Exeter' Every morning I was reminded of my alienness. Every morning, while mist was still enveloping us, Jack, the postman, would wave to me and call, `Hello, girl!' I would get upset. I wanted to be `chuck' like Bev next door. Despite correcting him several times, `Salma, Jack. Salina, please,' he would forget the next day and call me `girl' again. But Jack never had anything to remind him because I never received any letters with my Arab name, Salina Ibrahim El-Musa, printed on them. `Salma with tender hands and feet. Salina as fragrant as white jasmine flowers and as pure as honey in its glass jars.' But sometimes I wanted Jack to shout abuse at me the way the skinheads did at the White Hare. `Hey, alien! You, freak! Why don't you go back to the jungle? Go climb some coconut trees! Fuck off! Go home!' I did not deserve to be here, I did not deserve to be alive. I let her down.

I walked up South Street with its estate agents who could not wait to get their hands into your pocket. How far was I from becoming a first-time buyer? Two thousand miles? Thirty years? A lifetime? Oh! What would I give to have a house in Branscombe, where Minister Mahoney, the Irish Quaker, my saviour, now lived! A cottage with gas central heating, three bedrooms, a garden, a poodle, a microwave oven, a few sheep and goats, and a cow to milk every morning. Grass is not scarce there, so taking the sheep to the meadows should be easy, you see. I would spend my time farming, growing sheep and playing the pipe. A good English gentleman doctor would cure me of all my ailments. Happy and healthy I would be, living with my children. My brother would stop looking for me, thinking I was dead. My husband would be working overseas to provide for us.We would tell each other stories and laugh: the older mother and her beautiful children.

The sun shone on Minister Mahoney's house in Branscombe. Shelves decked with old books, the wornout sofa, the old radio in the corner and the Bible with his reading glasses on top of its leather jacket. Miss Asher had asked him to take care of me because `I have to go back to the region to try to save more innocent lives.'

`Salma is most welcome to stay for a few months,' he said slowly so I could understand. `I will be going back to the Middle East myself in the new year though.'

When I finished washing up after breakfast Minister Mahoney would ask me to sit down in the dining room and my `informal education' would begin, two hours of English, maths and science. Then he would prepare lunch and I would clear up. He went for long walks in the afternoon and I spent the time inspecting his late mother's display cabinet, his library and the photos over the mantelpiece. I inspected the photos looking for Minister Mahoney's young face. I dusted his mother's gold-rimmed and hand-painted china collection, repeating: `Dinner plate, dessert plate, soup plate, dessert bowls, cake plate, cream and sugar set, teapot, teacup, coffee cup, saucer," which he had taught me.

`She was attached to this Haviland set," he said as soon as he walked through the door of the dining room.

I did not expect him back so early so I sat down, suddenly disorientated. `Mother love her money hat,' I said.

`Does she?' he said. He took off his raincoat and tucked his shirt into his trousers.

I looked at his thin white arms, his wide back, his spindly legs and said, `I not worthy of love.'

`Of course you are,' he said and sat down facing me.

`I did shameful things," I said.

`We have all done things we regret,' he said. `It's part of being human.'

`I left her behind. Deserve to die, not live, me,' I said and began crying. `I also old, no home, no money, no job.'

He rubbed his tired blue eyes and said, `Nothing stays the same, child. Respect, love, pain, illness: nothing stays the same. It comes and then goes.You can even earn back respect. As for your family, one day you might decide to go back, things might change.'

`Things might change? I might go back?' I asked while tucking strands of hair that had slipped out back under my white veil.

`Yes, one day you should,' he said.

`Things might change," I said and began shaking.

He hesitated, ran his thin fingers over his grey hair, then hugged my trembling body and rocked me gently, repeating, `Shush, yakfi: enough, shush,' until I stopped crying.

I crossed the road and walked down a side street in order not to be spotted by my boss Max, who might be working this Saturday. `I do more when you're not all here chatterin' and twitterin'.' He was always leering through the nicotine-covered window at the passers-by. `Look! Look at her hair! She must have had a controlled explosion in the kitchen,' he would say and laugh. A laugh so menacing you would lower your eyes and run the sewing machine on the hem twice. `What did you say your name is, Salamaa? Oh dear! Oh dear!' Parvin said that rumour had it that Max was a supporter of the British National Party, which wanted to kill Jews, Arabs and Muslims. Whenever he looked at me with his penetrating eyes, a shiver would run through my body. Talking to one of his customers I once overheard him say, `Sally is in one of her moods. Arabs are obsessed with sadness.'

Someone told me that that pub on the corner was quite nice, with live music and all. I preferred the White Hare where I was about to get beaten by a drunken skinhead. He wanted to dance with me and I couldn't say no. He looked thin and tall in his black leather jacket and trousers, his spiky hair was dyed bright red just like a rooster. `Touch it! Shake it! Break it!' the young men repeated with the band then raised their right arm in a salute. His breath smelt of cheap beer when he held my hand, pulled me towards him until I could feel the cold metal spikes and studs against my body then he pushed me away from him and when I was far enough he swung me round. I was so obliging, like Liz's cloth doll. The singing became more frenzied and the smell of beer and stale breath filled the air. When he finally let go of me I was so sad to be still alive. I deserved to be mocked, beaten, even killed. I abandoned her, let them take her away.

I tightened my grip on the shopping bag and walked on. Students were flocking out of college. What was it like to be a student? What did they teach them here in England? Was it possible to walk out of my skin, my past, my name? Was it possible to open a new page, start afresh with those young awkward Goths? So I could sit with them behind desks listening to what the bright teacher had to say, then in the break I would eat my sugar and butter sandwich and drink dark bitter tea. I would spit in my sandwich to stop my classmates from snatching them out of my hand and eating my lunch. So when I was fifteen instead of going to prison, I would be going to the Arts Centre to see a French film holding the hand of a nice, shy boy. I could picture myself in a see-through black skirt, black T-shirt with `Death' printed on the front in red letters, black make-up and black Dr Martens shoes. I could even dye my hair purple.

It was really cold the first time I went to school. The season of reaping was over and the sky was full of dense clouds threatening rain. I could smell the log fires in braziers and smoked wheat. My mother combed my hair and wove it into two braids then I pulled the black embroidered dress, which used to belong to my mother, over my head, put my spicy ghee butter and sugar sandwich into my cloth bag, together with my notebook and pencil, and rushed to school. Barefoot I walked by the olive groves then up and down the arid hill until I was able to see the two mud classrooms, which were built by the men and women of the village, in the distance. The walls were not straight, the windows neither triangles nor rectangles, the doors padded into shape by hand. Miss Nailah, `the woman with the sealed lips', was waiting for us by the door.'Yala! Move it! You are late," she used to say.

Holding my notebook and pencil, I walked in. Sitting on the broken chair, I tried to concentrate on the blackboard.